Current
immigration policies are completely out of sync with the U.S. economy’s
demand for workers who fill less-skilled jobs, especially in the case
of Mexican workers. While U.S. immigration policies present a wide array
of avenues for immigrants to enter the United States, very few of these
avenues are tailored to workers in
less-skilled occupations. It should come as no surprise, then,
that immigrants come to or remain in the United States without proper
documentation in response to the strong economic demand for less-skilled
labor.

Among
the findings of this report:

According to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 48 percent of all job openings, some 27 million positions, between
2002 and 2012 “are expected to be held by workers who have a
high school diploma or less education.”

Given that 12.5
percent of native-born adults age 25 and older lacked a high school
diploma in 2003, compared to 32.8 percent of the foreign-born, it
is clear that a large number of less-skilled jobs will be filled by
immigrants.

According to
the 2003 American Community Survey, Mexicans comprised 30.7 percent
of all foreign-born workers in the United States, but amounted to
88.8 percent of the foreign-born labor force in “farming, fishing,
and forestry”; 60.2 percent in “construction and extraction”;
and 51.6 percent in “building and grounds cleaning and maintenance.”

Only one of
the five categories of visas for permanent immigration status is tailored
to less-skilled workers, and it is capped at 5,000 visas per year.

Only two of
the 16 employment-based visa categories for temporary immigrant status
are available to workers in industries that require little or no formal
training. One (H2A) is restricted to agricultural workers and the
other (H2B) is not only capped at 66,000, but is limited to “seasonal”
or otherwise “temporary” work that is defined so restrictively
as to disqualify workers in many industries.

Roughly 76 percent
of Mexicans receiving temporary work visas in 2002 were recipients
of only H2A and H2B visas. In other words, Mexican workers are crowded
into categories in which few visas are available for most industries.

The family-based
immigration system is not capable of compensating for deficiencies
in the employment-based system due to arbitrary numerical caps. In
the case of Mexican nationals, wait times for visas under the “family
preference” system are currently 7-10 years for the spouse of
an LPR and 10-12 years for the unmarried adult child of a U.S. citizen.

Introduction

The
debate over whether or not the U.S. economy needs workers from abroad
has intensified since President Bush proposed a new temporary worker
program in a January 2004 speech. In May 2005, Senators John McCain
(R-AZ) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduced legislation – the
Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act – that builds upon
the idea of a temporary worker program by also proposing the expansion
of pathways to lawful permanent residence for temporary workers (including
those already in the country in an undocumented status). This legislation
is based on an understanding that the current U.S. immigration system
provides very few legal avenues for the admission of workers needed
by the U.S. economy to fill less-skilled jobs, thereby creating incentives
for undocumented immigration, primarily from Mexico, in response to
actual labor demand.

U.S.
immigration policies allow prospective immigrants (as opposed to temporary
visitors) to legally enter the United States if visa petitions are filed
on their behalf by an employer or a family member who is either a U.S.
citizen or lawful permanent resident (LPR). However, there are extremely
few employment visas available to accommodate the millions of immigrant
workers whom the U.S. labor market demands as construction workers,
factory workers, groundskeepers, and housekeepers. As a result, many
workers from abroad enter or remain in the country either in an undocumented
status or by using the family-based immigration system, which is by
definition not designed to be an employment program. In order to correct
this imbalance, the U.S. immigration system must be reformed to place
a far greater emphasis on the U.S. economy’s demand for immigrant
workers, especially those from Mexico, who fill less-skilled jobs.

Foreign-Born
Workers Play a Critical Role in the U.S. Labor Force

There
is a high demand in the United States for workers in jobs that require
little or no formal education. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
there probably will be about 56 million job openings between 2002 and
2012, and 42 million of those, or 75 percent, “are projected to
be filled by workers who do not have a bachelor’s degree and who
are entering an occupation for the first time.” Moreover, 27 million
of these positions “are expected to be held by workers who have
a high school diploma or less education.” That amounts to roughly
48 percent of all job openings in the country. NOTE
1

Given
that 12.5 percent of native-born adults age 25 and older lacked a high
school diploma in 2003, compared to 32.8 percent of the foreign-born
NOTE 2, it is clear that
a large number of less-skilled jobs will be filled by immigrants. Some
observers nevertheless contend that foreign-born workers in less-skilled
jobs displace their native-born counterparts. However, the experience
of the U.S. economy in the 1990s does not support that argument. The
United States received the largest number of immigrants in its history
during the 1990s NOTE 3,
including many who lacked much formal education, yet unemployment and
poverty rates among the native-born fell substantially. NOTE
4 Moreover, employment in about one-third of all U.S. job
categories would have contracted during the 1990s if not for the presence
of recently arrived immigrant workers, even if all unemployed U.S.-born
workers with recent job experience in those categories had been available.
NOTE 5

Recent
data from the American Community Survey (ACS) indicate that foreign-born
workers continue to be an indispensable part of the U.S. labor force.
According to the ACS, the foreign-born accounted for 14.3 percent of
all workers in the United States in 2003. However, foreign-born workers
comprised a far higher percentage of the workforce in particular occupations.
Foreign-born workers amounted to 39.7 percent of the U.S. labor force
in “farming, fishing, and forestry occupations”; 29 percent
in “building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations”;
21.7 percent in “production occupations” (which includes
workers in assembly, food processing, textiles, and apparel); 21.5 percent
in “construction and extraction occupations” (which includes
mining); and 20 percent in “food preparation and serving related
occupations.”

Although
foreign-born workers who fill less-skilled jobs hail from many different
countries, the largest portion comes from Mexico. NOTE
6 While Mexicans accounted for 30.7 percent of all foreign-born
workers in the United States in 2003, they comprised 88.8 percent of
the foreign-born labor force in “farming, fishing, and forestry”;
60.2 percent in “construction and extraction”; 51.6 percent
in “building and grounds cleaning and maintenance”; 45.4
percent in “production”; and 44.3 percent in “food
preparation and serving.” As a result, industries that rely heavily
on Mexican workers are most directly affected by the failure of U.S.
immigration policies to respond to U.S. labor demand.

Employment-Based
System Admits Too Few Workers for Less-Skilled Jobs

Despite
the critical role played by foreign-born workers in many less-skilled
job categories, the current immigration system offers very few employment-based
visas for these workers. Nearly all of the visa “preference”
categories that do exist for workers in less-skilled jobs are subject
to arbitrary numerical caps that do not even come close to matching
the level of labor demand in the U.S. economy. The result is that an
enormous number of prospective employment-based immigrants are “crowded”
into a small number of highly limited visa categories.

There
are five preference categories of visas for permanent immigration status
and only one is set aside for workers in less-skilled jobs. Four of
the five favor immigrants with higher levels of education or financial
capital and are therefore not relevant to less-skilled workers. The
remaining category, the employment-based “third preference,”
allots only 5,000 visas each year to workers in occupations that require
less than two years of higher education, training, or experience. NOTE
7 This visa category, which is designated for “other
workers,” is nearly the only employment-based avenue for permanent
immigration available to workers in less-skilled jobs. About 71 percent
of Mexicans receiving an employment-based visa for permanent immigration
to the United States used this preference category in 2001. NOTE
8

A
similar bottleneck exists for workers in less-skilled jobs who seek
employment-based visas for temporary immigrant status. There are 16
different types of temporary immigrant visas available for employment
and training in the United States, and in 2002 some 656,000 persons
were admitted under these categories. Of these 16 visa categories, only
two – H2A and H2B – are available to workers in industries
that require little or no formal training. H2As are restricted to agricultural
workers. H2Bs are not only capped at 66,000, but are limited to “seasonal”
or otherwise “temporary” work that is defined so restrictively
as to disqualify workers in many industries. Workers in less-skilled
jobs received only 16 percent of all temporary employment and training
visas awarded in 2002. Roughly 76 percent of Mexicans receiving temporary
work visas in 2002 were recipients of only H2A and H2B visas. In other
words, Mexican workers are crowded into categories in which few visas
are available for most industries.

Family-Based
System is Inefficient at Providing Visas for Workers

At
first glance, it might seem as if the family-based immigration system
is capable of compensating for deficiencies in the employment-based
system. Given that the majority of immigration to the United States
is based on family connections, it is logical to assume that these connections
would perpetuate a steady stream of immigrants belonging to the same
socioeconomic class as the family members who sponsor them. In other
words, foreign-born workers filling less-skilled jobs in the United
States would petition for immigrant visas on behalf of their family
members abroad who would presumably also fill less-skilled jobs when
they arrived.

In
reality, however, the effectiveness and efficiency of the family-based
immigration system is undermined by excessively long delays which stem
from arbitrary numerical caps and highly complex rules and regulations.
U.S. citizens may immediately obtain “visa numbers” when
petitioning for their spouses and minor children (under age 21) to immigrate
to the United States. However, the allotment of visa numbers for all
other relatives of U.S. citizens, and for all the relatives of lawful
permanent residents (LPRs), is governed by a complex “family preference”
system characterized by lengthy waiting times. For instance, in the
case of Mexican nationals, wait times are currently 7-10 years for the
spouse of an LPR and 10-12 years for the unmarried adult child of a
U.S. citizen. In general, wait times for the relatives of LPRs are many
years longer than the wait times for relatives of U.S. citizens. NOTE
9 Wait times of this magnitude not only undermine the family-reunification
goal of the family-based immigration system, but also render that system
an ineffective means of responding to U.S. labor demand.

Many
immigrants who fill less-skilled jobs end up relying on U.S.-citizen
family sponsors who are few and far between. Given the enormous wait
times for the relatives of LPRs, it is not surprising that most immigrants
who obtain lawful permanent residence through the family-based immigration
system do so on the basis of sponsorship by a U.S. citizen. In 2003,
89 percent of all petitioners were U.S. citizens, whereas only 11 percent
were LPRs. In the case of Mexico, 82 percent of petitioners were U.S.
citizens and 18 percent were LPRs.

Mexican
immigrants in the United States historically have relatively low rates
of naturalization, so this gives prospective immigrants in Mexico few
U.S.-citizen sponsors. Only 22.4 percent of Mexican immigrants in the
United States in 2003 were naturalized U.S. citizens. As a result, the
majority of prospective immigrants in Mexico do not have a U.S.-citizen
relative who could sponsor them for lawful permanent residence.

Despite
the inadequacies of the family-based immigration system, immigrants
from Mexico must rely overwhelmingly on family connections to enter
the United States due to the lack of employment-based visas open to
them. Some 94 percent of Mexicans entering in 2003 did so through family
relationships, whereas only 3 percent entered on employment visas. Moreover,
other avenues for entry such as diversity visas and grants to refugees
and asylees, which account for 18 percent of all entries worldwide,
are not available to Mexicans.

Conclusion

Current
immigration policies are completely out of sync with the U.S. economy’s
demand for workers who fill less-skilled jobs, especially in the case
of Mexican workers. Indeed, the current debate over whether or not to
create a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants has more
to do with labor policy than with undocumented immigration per se. While
U.S. immigration policies present a wide array of avenues for immigrants
to enter the United States, very few of these avenues are tailored to
workers in less-skilled occupations.
As a result, workers frequently use the family-based immigration system,
which is plagued by delays that last for years and favors the relatively
few immigrants who have U.S.-citizen and LPR relatives who can petition
on their behalf. It should come as no surprise, then, that immigrants
come to or remain in the United States without proper documentation
in response to the strong economic demand for less-skilled labor. U.S.
immigration policies should be reoriented to meet actual labor needs.
President Bush and other prominent policymakers have begun a public
discussion that appears to be heading in this direction. This effort
is essential in order to bring efficiency and realism to U.S. immigration
policy.

Copyright
2005 by the American Immigration Law Foundation.

July
2005

*Rob
Paral is a Research Fellow with the American Immigration Law Foundation.
He may be contacted at info@robparal.com. Michael Norkewicz provided
data processing for this report.

6
This report focuses on Mexican immigrants due to limitations in the
data provided by the Statistical Yearbooks published by the
Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics.
The Yearbooks present data on immigrants by country of origin,
not by the occupational skill levels of immigrants. However, given the
numerical preponderance of Mexican workers in less-skilled occupations,
Mexican workers can serve as a substitute for workers in less-skilled
occupations as a whole.

7
The cap is set at 10,000, but 5,000 visas are reserved each year for
beneficiaries of the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief
Act (NACARA).

8
All statistics in this report on the numbers of temporary and permanent
immigrants entering the United States under various visa categories
are taken from the most recent tables published by the Department of
Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics in its Statistical
Yearbooks.